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THE SEA FISHERIES OF IRELAND. 



.general use, giving a much greater spread to the net, but poles in the larger 

 boats are used as well. On the coasts of Ulster the otters approved of are 

 larger in proportion to the size of the boats, and poles are unnecessary. In 

 Dublin, Galway, and Dingle there are fleets of beam trawl boats varying 

 from forty to seventy tons, many of them being purchased in Brixham, 

 Lowestoft, or Grimsby, and a few steam trawlers are also owned in Ireland. 

 The greater part of the Irish sea is a trawling ground, and is more or less 

 a sheltered area. Soles and plaice migrate within it according to season, 

 and were followed to their favourite haunts by the sailing trawlers from 

 Dublin, Liverpool, and the Isle of Man. Spells of calms and of storms 

 gave the fish a chance of rest, the number of days in the year that trawlers 

 could be on their track being comparatively few. Now the whole business 

 is changed, and the steam trawlers ceaselessly prowl to and fro — no calm 



Mackerel Seine Boat and " Follyer." 



can stop them, and only exceptionally severe storms. The steam fleets are 

 growing, the demand for fresh fish appears to be increasing, the business is 

 a thriving one, and the only question is — how long can it last ? The returns 

 of fish landed at the great fish ports of Grimsby, Hull, Aberdeen, Liverpool, 

 and Milford show big figures, and a casual glance has led many to the con- 

 clusion that the fishing grounds of the United Kingdom are bearing the 

 strain fairly well ; but closer examination shows that these returns are kept 

 up by hosts of steamers arriving from the coast of Ireland (for which Irish 

 statistics show nothing), from Iceland, Faroe, the Bay of Biscay, and the 

 coast of Holland, the areas fished being a hundred times greater than they 

 were fifty years ago. 



To the south and north of Ireland are great areas good for trawling, but 

 exposed to the Atlantic swell, and in the west of Ireland are particularly 

 rich grounds, but of small extent, on account of the rapid deepening of the 

 ocean in that direction. 



Fish in paying quantities for the steamers, and in some cases for the 



